Nurses’ Knowledge of Evidence-Based Practices Regarding The Prevention of Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia: The Case of Izmir

Objective: The aim of the present study was to determine nurses’ knowledge of evidence-based practices regarding the prevention of VAP. Materials and Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted between March - June 2014 from two university hospitals and five training and research hospitals in İzmir. The universe of this study was made up 500 nurses working in intensive care units; and the sampling involved of those who agreed to participate in the study between data collection dates. Collection of research data was performed by means of a “Socio-demographic and work characteristics questionnaire” and a form of “Questionnaire of evidence-based knowledge about the prevention of VAP”. Analysis of data using the Kolmogrov-Smirnov test indicated a non-normal distribution, and therefore non-parametric tests were used. The statistical significance level was set at p 0.05 for the analysis conducted using the Mann-Whitney U test and the Kruskal-Wallis test and at p 0.02 for the three pairwise comparisons and p 0.01 for the six pairwise comparisons performed with the Bonferroni-corrected Mann-Whitney U test. Results: The study included 332 nurses. Of these, 73.8% did not have a certificate in intensive care nursing. In the present study, the nurses’ knowledge of evidence-based practices regarding the prevention of VAP was found to be very low (2.02±0.47). It was determined that variables such as years in the profession, years of experience in the intensive care unit (ICU) and having a certificate in intensive care nursing did not affect knowledge levels. Conclusions: Results of the study found the nurses’ knowledge of EBPs regarding the prevention of VAP was very low. It is important to direct nurses to evidence-based studies, and to conduct certificate and in-service trainings regularly using current evidence.